swine flu

Swine Flu and you

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Just a random thought before I head out to enjoy some sunshine today. But am I the only person who is wondering about this swine flu thing? Seriously, I know its real and shit, hell my oldest and dearest friend in the universe is recovering from a bout with the pig and she says its nothing to sneeze at. Shit, she sounded so bad the other night when she called me, I was confused about whether or not she is recovering.

I have to be honest, first I was all gung-ho about getting the H1N1 shot, of course I would have to search hard to find it and now I am plain old confused. Thanks to the internets we can all get online and become junior researchers, of course what you find depends greatly on the agenda of the site you are on. Go to the CDC site and they will have you ready to hold a doctor or pharmacist at gunpoint to get a shot. On the flip side check out more alternative healthcare providers sites and you will be ready to say fuck that shit, the gubment is trying to do us in.

Of course I like to think the truth is somewhere in the middle when it comes to this thing. After all seasonal flu kills an awful lot of folks annually too. Though when its lil ole granny going out being the youth focused culture we, no one gives a damn. Now though we have cute babies and young folks dying, so we are on high alert.

I admit though as a parent, the thought that my precious babies could get really sick and die scares the shit out of me and is one of the reasons, I am still confused about what to do. After all my general attitude to standard vaccinations is a tad more lax than many folks. I vaccinate, just not on the CDC recommended schedule, in the 14 year gap between my kids, there were too many more shots recommended on infants for my taste. So baby girl is just now getting her shots, with the plan being she will have most by the time she starts school.

Anyway what are your thoughts on swine flu? Are you getting the shot? Why, or why not? Right now I am keeping my hands clean, upping my dose of cod liver oil and when I feel even a tad sick, I stay home. It’s funny because I suspect this winter for the first time we will see productivity go down as sick folks stay home where they should be instead of running to work coughing and being sick and making everyone else sick. One might say that is a good thing but I doubt it is…

Its May 1

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It’s Friday which means the end of the week though it looks like our gorgeous weather we have been enjoying up here in my corner of the world is tired of playing and instead it will be gray skies and rain for a little while. No problem since really, 90 degree temps in Maine is pretty unheard of this time of year and actually a tad scary. I generally like the fact that it does not get blistering hot here. Despite the stereotypes about Black folks, I lean towards having a preference for cooler weather and actually get downright grouchy when its hot. Though one day of extreme warmth wasn’t too bad.

In addition to being Friday, its May 1 which in case you didn’t know is May Day, International Workers Day as well as Beltane which is the festival of fertility for Wiccans and Pagans. I’m neither Wiccan or Pagan but I do find the celebrations and festivities related to Beltane  very much a great reminder of spring and just how alive I feel in spring.

As a self-professed member of the working class, the rights of workers is very much on my mind today as we see the little man being shat upon by the big boys. Anyway just a nonsensical musing today, I don’t feel like a deep post. Too much going on in both my personal world and the world at large (by the way the pigs must have organized and expressed that they did not like being maligned in such a horrid fashion, so instead of swine flu we now have influenza A…definitely less ominous).

So have a happy Friday and a good weekend and remember wash those hands!

Wash your hands

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Just when we thought we had enough on our plates, now we can add swine flu to the mix. Unless you have been actively avoiding the news (which in that case why the  hell are you reading me?) you know that the world is on the brink of a pandemic, seems every 5 minutes we are being told of a new case in a new location. Let’s see in the world of six degrees of separation, my old grammar school in Chicago is closed because of a case and just two towns over from me in Maine, there is a reported case.

Its enough to make a sista get crazy and just not leave the house but alas I must work and as part of my job, I seem to shake a lot of hands. Its sort of hard to beg effectively on behalf of a good cause without shaking folks hands. Though maybe if I am lucky we can just do away with the handshake, how about a nod? Sort of like what Black folks tend to do in public when we want to acknowledge one another in certain settings. Instead of saying Hi, I am Black Girl and shaking hands I will just say Hello and hit a nod instead.

Seriously, make no mistake while this sounds serious and scary…of course turning off the telly makes it less scary. On a separate note, maybe we need to go back to the old days when tv shut down after midnight, no news 24/7. See, I am showing my age, the good old days of when you were up at 3 am, there was nothing to watch and that meant nothing, no infomercials, just snow on the screen. Problem with constant news is that it makes things seem worse, after all we lose thousands of folks annually to traditional influenza, the only thing with the swine flu that is concerning me is that it is putting a hurting on people in age groups who traditionally don’t get as sick with traditional flu. Folks in the 20-50 age range.

Anyway to repeat the words of many others, if you are scared before you start trying to buy bootleg antibiotics off the interwebz, and stockpiling on paper masks…use some old fashioned common sense. Wash your fucking hands! I repeat wash your dirty hands and wash often, no where near soap and water, then get some alcohol based sanitizer.

I see a lot of folks in my daily life who practice poor hygiene, look its never ok to piss anywhere and not wash your hands. I know folks who do this and they are not three years old. Look, I know you hate touching the door knob of the public restroom but its not a license to avoid washing your hands. If you peed and wiped, even if you think urine is sterile (yes I know folks who think this) and you “think” you didn’t get any on your hands, fact is you were in contact with your privates and you need to wash your hands.

So eat well, get rest, wash your hands and maybe delay that trip to Mexico and hopefully we will all be fine.